Total mercury released to the environment by human activities

Streets, David G.; Horowitz, Hannah M.; Jacob, Daniel J.; Lu, Zifeng; Levin, Leonard; ter Schure, Arnout F. H.; Sunderland, Elsie M.

doi:10.1021/acs.est.7b00451

Total mercury released to the environment by human activities

Journal Article · Thu Apr 27 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Environmental Science and Technology

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b00451· OSTI ID:1364136

^[1]; Horowitz, Hannah M. ^[2]; Jacob, Daniel J. ^[2]; Lu, Zifeng ^[1]; Levin, Leonard ^[3]; ter Schure, Arnout F. H. ^[3]; ^[2]

Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA (United States)

Here, we estimate that a cumulative total of 1.5 (1.0–2.8) Tg (teragrams, or million tonnes) of mercury (Hg) have been released by human activities up to 2010, 73% of which was released after 1850. Of this liberated Hg, 470 Gg (gigagrams, or thousand tonnes) was emitted directly into the air, and 74% of the air emissions were elemental Hg. Cumulatively, about 1.1 Tg were released to land and water bodies. Though annual releases of Hg have been relatively stable since 1880 at 8 ± 2 Gg, except for wartime, the distributions of those releases among source types, world regions, and environmental media have changed dramatically. Production of Hg accounts for 27% of cumulative Hg releases to the environment, followed by silver mining (24%) and chemicals manufacturing (12%). North America (30%), Europe (27%), and Asia (16%) have experienced the largest releases. Biogeochemical modeling shows a 3.2-fold increase in the atmospheric burden relative to 1850 and a contemporary atmospheric reservoir of 4570 Mg, both of which agree well with observational constraints. We find that approximately 40% (390 Gg) of the Hg discarded to land and water must be sequestered at contaminated sites to maintain consistency with recent declines in atmospheric Hg concentrations.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI); USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 1364136

Journal Information:: Environmental Science and Technology, Journal Name: Environmental Science and Technology Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 51; ISSN 0013-936X

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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